by L.H. Thomson
Cobi hopped the fence in two strides, nearly landing on the brown sedan parked just beyond. Tommy was almost across the lot, then at the fence, then scaling it again, taking off through the backyard of an adjacent home, a red-sided two-story. He disappeared between its bushy hedges. Cobi followed just behind, making sure to keep an eye on him and for cars as he crossed the alley to the backyard.
The butt of the gun came blind from his left side as he stepped through the hedges, but Cobi was alert, paying attention. He saw it just in time in his peripheral vision, a blurry object cutting through the snowy air; instinct kicked in and he ducked backwards slightly, the swinging weapon and Tommy’s hand flying past him. It was a familiar sensation to Cobi, the adrenaline slowing things down, moving him into what athletes describe as “the zone,” a point of peak performance, uncluttered by thought or worry. He wrapped his left elbow around the passing arm and pulled it in tight, his right hand simultaneously coming around hard and punching the back of Tommy’s hand, breaking the small bones. The younger man dropped the gun with a pitiful shriek from the pain and stumbled half a step backwards, bent at the waist and still locked up with his pursuer, a shocked look on the younger man’s face as Cobi’s other fist came crashing home, and everything went black.
39
The Featherstone home was a modern mansion, the exterior design an uninspired and suburban mix of fake siding and decorative rock, as cookie cutter as any new development kit home, but four times the usual size. To the right side of its gigantic red paving stone parking lot was a six-car garage. Jessie parked her car near the steps up to the front door, hoping to save herself from too much snow. She turned off the car and got out, shutting the door and pulling up her coat’s hood, before sprint-jogging to the house, twenty yards away. The double oak doors opened before she reached the top step. An older woman in a tan business suit and white collarless shirt held one side open, an imposingly large figure with apple-round cheeks and square, man’s chin.
“Come in, come in!” she greeted cheerfully. “I am Frau Grunther, the Featherstones’ housekeeper.” She closed the door. “Let me take your coat, Ms. Harper.”
Jessie was about to beg off the request before realizing how wet her coat was. “Sure, that’s fine.” She took it off, but held on tight to her purse. She had no idea what to expect.
Frau Grunther took the coat over to a small closet by the door and hung it up. “Now, Mrs. Featherstone is in the drawing room, if you would just follow me.”
The hallway was wide, the ceilings towering eighteen feet above, lit bright by a modern chrome chandelier. There were pictures along the wall to their right, all artwork, nothing personal. They passed a kitchen to their left, a huge room with bright pendant lights, marble counters and slate tile floor. The drawing room was the last on the right before the stairway at the end of the hall. “Go on in, Ms. Harper. May I serve you a beverage? Perhaps a cup of tea?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Jess declined. Whether Deidre Featherstone intended on reminding visitors that the family had money or not, she wasn’t sure. But the place was opulent, and nothing less, and greeting people in the drawing room gave them something of a tour, a little peek at how the other half lives.
The drawing room felt like it was the size of Jessie’s townhouse, hundreds of square feet of French antique furniture, brocaded rugs and giant wall portraits, perhaps of recent generations of Featherstones. There was a walnut-shaded grand piano in one corner and floor-to-ceiling bookcases in another.
“Ms. Harper. I shan’t lie and tell you I’m particularly pleased to see you this evening.” Deidre was sitting in a wingback chair by the cast-iron fireplace, a book on her lap and the reading lamp behind the chair turned on.
She said “shan’t” the way Eliza Doolittle might have, Jessie thought. The rain in Spain stays mainly full of shit. I’m betting it’s more like Bieseker or Lethbridge.
Jess walked over and offered a handshake, which Deidre accepted with a weak grip and no enthusiasm. “My apologies for just dropping in…”
“Oh, I understand it’s something of a habit for you people.”
“Us people?”
“You know… the people from your clinic. You and Mr. Tate. He did mention that he dropped by, I’m sure.”
“He did, yes.”
“Then I suppose he also told you that I have no knowledge of why anyone would want to kill Brian.”
“He told me that was your perspective, yes.”
“Perspective? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Well, perspective is usually a matter of choice, of where you stand when you look at the big picture, Mrs. Featherstone. And your husband had a lot of very public enemies.”
Deidre lifted the small glass of sherry off of her side table and took a sip. “Hmmm…yes… well, as I told Mr. Tate, I was not privy to my husband’s business dealings.”
“You knew his reputation.”
“I ignore gossip whenever possible.”
“But you were privy to what went on outside of work, Mrs. Featherstone. We know that both you and your husband had been unfaithful to one another…”
“Our private affairs are none of your concern,” she denied, her face tightening into a frown. “Whatever faults Brian may have had, he doesn’t deserve to have his name dragged through the mud.”
“There are some people, Mrs. Featherstone, who might see a lover on the side as a rationale for murder.”
She looked faintly smug about it. “I suppose there are. But Peter and I aren’t in love, Ms. Harper. I discovered my husband’s indiscretion and decided to have one of my own. Peter is attractive, powerful, and a serial philanderer.”
“So this was payback?”
“In a sense, I suppose so, yes.”
“Did you ever see the woman your husband was sleeping with?”
“Thankfully, no. But I had a private investigator provide me with as non-graphic a report as possible.”
“Then you know who she is?”
“I dare say one could figure it out, given enough time. But in his short time confirming my suspicions, the detective did not manage to get a last name, and when he asked whether to continue, I had him drop the matter.”
“Drop it? Why?”
“For one, my husband and I had a prenuptial agreement that specified in the case of infidelity he would not contest a divorce.”
“And…”
“And I still loved him.”
“How long ago did this start?”
“About eighteen months. The woman was a middle-aged bleached blonde named Gail, some slut he met in a bar downtown.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that the real reason you came out here tonight, Ms. Harper? To find out the identity of my husband’s latest conquest?”
“It’s the main reason,” Jessie said. “She might be why your husband was murdered.”
“I see. And it wasn’t because you still consider me a suspect? Or Peter?”
Jessica considered how to answer tactfully. The delay held a clear suggestion.
“Ah,” said Deidre.
“Mrs. Featherstone…”
“No, that’s quite all right, Ms. Harper. I wouldn’t expect the person defending my husband’s killer to believe me. Although…”
“Yes?”
“Ms. Harper, may I ask you a question in return?”
“Of course.”
“Does it not bother you that what you’re doing is hurting us a great deal? I mean, even if, for the sake of argument, one of either Peter or I killed Brian, that certainly would not suggest the other was involved. And that fifty-fifty proposition – that either /or – would mean that at least one of the people whom you harangue is genuinely grieving. I wonder, Ms. Harper, does that bother you?”
Jessie had to admit to herself she hadn’t thought about it. “I’m just doing my job, Mrs. Featherstone.”
“It’s not a very nice job, is it, Ms. Harper?”
“Sometimes, no. It’s the nature of many of the p
eople I encounter.” Jessie leveled a dead stare at her as she said it.
“And you presume that that includes my husband and me?”
“I know it includes him. I wouldn’t presume to judge you, Mrs. Featherstone.”
“Just my taste in husbands.”
Jessie rose to leave. “I think perhaps I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Do tell,” Deidre said.
Tommy shook off the punch in less than a minute, his head groggy and his eyes dancing as Cobi propped him up against the wall, under the overhang of a building’s rear entrance.
Cobi gave him a light slap. “Wake up.”
“What happened?”
“I knocked you out. Tommy, it’s Cobi Tate. You remember?”
Tommy squinted.
“The bar. Why’d you run when I came in looking for Ritchie Grant? You working for him or something? Or do you just owe Buddy more money?”
“Please… Mr. Tate, I don’t want to get involved in any of this. I swear, I don’t know nothing.
“Where is he, Tommy? You dealing for him?”
Tommy’s eyes darted up and down the alley. “Man, keep it down. Life is life and business is business, you know?”
“Nobody around here gives a damn; and if they do, they sure don’t give a damn about your involvement in whatever trash Grant had you doing – or maybe selling.”
“You tell him that,” Tommy said. “Ritchie is crazy, man. I wouldn’t cross that dude if I had an army at my back. In fact, anything to stay on his good side, people in this hood will do it.”
“You see him recently with anyone who looked out of place? Like, not his usual client base?”
“Ritchie is mobile, man. He don’t have ‘out of place’ customers. He treats everyone the same, which is usually bad.”
“So you didn’t see anyone around the bar recently? Maybe a middle-aged businessman looking for some action? ‘Cause I’ve got an eyewitness who saw that guy arguing with your boss, only he had a bleach blonde attached to his arm, maybe someone Ritchie knew.”
“Man, I could get dead real quick talking to you,” Tommy said.
“You shoot at me again, we won’t even need to have a conversation about it. The blonde: do you know her?”
“Please, man….”
“Tell me now, or we’re going another round.” The snow let up to a gentle dusting.
“Okay, okay! Her name is Gail and she’s some sort of nurse or something. Ritchie’s been supplying…”
“With crack?
“Uh huh, and a little meth.”
“How long?”
“About a year.”
“You ever see her with anyone else? Say, maybe, an out-of-place businessman? Someone who wound up dead a few hours later?”
He nodded cautiously. “Yeah. They showed up together the night he died. They got into words with Ritchie over something. Woman owed Ritchie money. A few of the guys said he took your friend to the alley here and put two in him.”
“Ritchie Grant shot him?”
“Heard the shots myself. Didn’t see what happened to the dude. None of us were going back there to find out.”
“Then what happened?”
“That’s it, man, that’s all of it. Look man, you can’t let him know I told you any of this shit, or my life is over.”
“We’re going to need you to talk to the cops, Tommy. Not until they have him, though.”
“No way, man. No chance.”
“Either you do, or I tell them what you told me and they come looking for you. You got any other warrants?”
“Yeah, a couple. Nothing big.”
“Uh huh. You can bet they’ll consider this a big deal. You’re what’s known as a material witness, Tommy. Besides, the faster you talk to them, the faster they put you in protective custody.” Cobi didn’t know if it was true, but he figured it might lower the younger man’s anxiety. “All you have to do is point me towards Ritchie Grant.”
“All I got is a number, man. He changes his cell phone all the time, so it might not even be good.”
“Give it to me anyway,” Cobi said. “Then lay low until we’ve picked him up. You okay?”
Tommy nodded but his eyes darted around in a way that suggested he was anything but. “I got to get out of here, man.”
“Where do you live?”
“I got a honey in Bungalowdesh.”
Cobi peered quizzically. “Where?”
“Mill Woods, dude. You know, ‘cause there’s so many East Indian dudes there.”
“Yeah… whatever. Go down there for a couple of days while we track down Ritchie and wrap this shit up, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You need a cab?”
Tommy nodded, his face blank, mind elsewhere, which Cobi figured was pretty much par.
40
Jessie waited in the car for a few minutes, letting the heater defrost the thin white sheet of ice that had formed on her windshield during her half-hour of talking to Deidre Featherstone. Once her view cleared, she directed the old BMW back down the kilometer-long driveway to the highway.
The road was dark, barely visible through the drifts and gusts, illuminated by a row of center lights perhaps two hundred meters apart. Jessie turned on the radio to help avoid fatigue or her eyes wandering off of the road. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about Deidre struck her as credible. She wasn’t likeable, by any stretch. But for all her world-weary disinterest and contempt for her late husband, she had few motives; Peter Kennedy was evidently no catch, unless she was lying about his philandering.
Outside the car, the snow continued to swirl in a miasma, frigid and bleak. It suited her mood. So much time spent trying to acquit someone with few prospects, a career drug dealer. If you didn’t know where the Paul Sidneys of the world came from, you wouldn’t be doing this. You’d be in a high-rise downtown, or maybe in Vancouver or Toronto at a top international firm. You’d be pampered, and comfortable, and set for life, instead of driving through a shitty blizzard near Beaumont.
And what for? To salvage Brian Featherstone’s reputation? It rankled that doing the right thing could feel so wrong, so often. And then there were the potential side players: any number of Featherstone’s victims could have hired Ritchie Grant. There were bad men in the city, sociopaths who’d kill a guy for a hundred bucks. Getting a hardcore gangster to do the job would’ve cost money and, maybe, required an equal dose of desperation.
Then there was the matter of the body dump. Why in the Northeast, on a quiet street? Why not just leave it downtown? Or drive an extra fifteen minutes until out in the suburbs, where a road could disappear amongst the farmers’ fields in the dark of an early winter evening, and scarcely see another car for half the year?
The car reached the city limits, passing a new housing development at the base of Fiftieth Street, the road flooded by streetlights as the sky darkened. Her phone rang, and she propped it on her right shoulder to keep her hands on the wheel. “This is Jessie.”
“It’s me,” Cobi said. “I just took a cab downtown. We need to meet. Metro Billiards good for you?”
“Not tonight,” Jessie refused. “It’s ‘church’ tonight.”
“Church?”
“Media night. Half the political reporters in town and a few government types drink there at the same time every week. The last thing we need is the press getting involved – not yet, anyway.”
“Coffee, then?”
Jessie felt the urge for something stronger, something to numb the stress a little. She thought about her grandfather’s warning. “Coffee’s good,” she accepted, trying not to sound disappointed.
She ended the call as the traffic weaved its way at sixty into the south of the city, the huge housing district called Mill Woods. Her car hit a bump, the headlights jumping ahead slightly with the rocking motion; a moment later, her rear view mirror reflected the flash of headlights, repeating the manoeuver. She glanced back, but the headlights made
it too bright to see the car.
The road twisted and wound slightly uphill, towards Thirty-fourth Avenue, four lanes divided down the middle by a large green isle, separate left-turn lanes cutting into it at every half-mile, the streets alternately dotted with five-floor condos and strip malls. She checked her speedometer; she was under the limit, being cautious with the weather but still surprised the car behind hadn’t taken the empty other lane.
The road straightened north of the Whitemud Freeway, moving into an industrial park, auto shops and part stores, storage facilities. A few minutes passed and Jessie checked her rearview mirror. The car was still right behind her. It was the second time in the last two days that she’d felt like a car shadowed hers.
I’m being paranoid. It’s a two-lane road. This person is just sitting back. I’m not being followed. Just to be sure, Jessie changed lanes to the outside, which was normally used by faster vehicles but was empty, then slowed the car.
The tail didn’t change lanes; but it slowed down even more than her, dropping slightly back, both vehicles well under the speed limit.
Okay, now, that’s not normal. No one drives that slowly… unless maybe it’s a stoner who thinks I’m a cop or something. Maybe that’s it, Jess thought. So if I speed up, he’ll probably stay back…
She changed lanes again and stepped on the gas, getting the car up to sixty-five kilometers per hour, just over the limit. Fifty yards behind her, the other car sped up to keep pace.
Shit. I’m being followed. Jessie felt a moment of panic but pushed it down. No time for that. How do I handle this? What would Cobi do? Probably screech to a halt and confront whoever it is, then get shot at.
Okay, she thought, so that’s out.
Jessie tried to weigh out her options. She could call the police, and they’d probably track her down within a few minutes. But there was no proof of anything or of any ill intent; they might not even respond. Up ahead on the left, on the side of the road serving the south bound lanes, the glow of a gas station light illuminated the snow banks that flanked the asphalt.